Thinking of what might have happened if the Romans had won the Battle of the saltus Teutoburgiensis I came to think of the general conditions and motives behind my preoccupation with althistory, conculture and conworlding. What is it that I’m doing and why, other than, as Tolkien rightly saw as compelling¹, providing a place to be spoken for my artlangs?

It is clear that I like the general idea of conculture and conworlding, so I came to ask myself why I became passive in Ill Bethisad? I’m basically enthusiastic about IB and admire what they have done — my own part being small and erratic —, so more power to them, but obviously there is a diffrence in interest.

Unlike the IB group I’m more interested in the possible cultural and linguistic consequences of small historical changes than the political ones. Neither am I very interested in creating an alternative contemporary world commenting with a twist on the real world, as IB has become.

I’m more for a broad canvas and a broad brush. By inclination I think history becomes less interesting once the early modern era has been entered, around 1600 or so, and things become too much like modern politics for my taste once the modern era begins. Sure they were politicking knaves then as now, but it is easier to be dispassionate even about figures as late as Elizabeth I and her contemporaries or Christina of Sweden than about Maggie Thatcher or Liz II, or at least the passion is of a different kind. Sure I’d have liked for there to be more republics² in the Middle Ages than today, but I’m more interested in discussing ways it might have happened than writing a whole fictitious history where it happened.

It is tempting to make up an utopian world, but IMNSHO not so interesting, and often boring and the worst form of escapism. For example to make up an ATL where Nazi Germany didn’t happen verges on irresponsibility, since the evils of this world should be dealt with — another lesson from Tolkien! It is better to draw a line that one doesn’t discuss the last few centuries — at least not in any detail. Linguistic developments may of course be pursued up to now and beyond. The worst thing that may happen is that someone’s fave lang happened not to have existed in some mighthavebeens. The advantage of not hurting anyone’s feelings by not selecting one mighthavebeen as the alternate reality of course applies to religion too. I’m intrigued by the idea of a less monolithic Europe emerging out of the dying Roman empire, where the various subcultures of that time may have survived in various nooks, so to speak to be able to study each of them in vitro.

This of course ultimately reflects my predilections for diversity and tolerance. Someone else may sincerely believe that Theodosius’s and Justinian’s insistence on a single, universal and orthodox church actually saved millions of souls down the centuries. Still it remains a fact that the disappearance of Arianism and the relative unimportance of Monophysitism and Nestorianism, not to mention Zoroastrianism in our world is largely a consequence of the spread of Islam. Besides Protestantism did emerge eventually despite Inquisitions and all: human nature being what it is new schisms and political ideologies, and new intolerances, would have emerged whatever course history had taken. There isn’t a single religion or ideology which hasn’t had any. Even Buddhists have made holy wars on each other! Anyway alternate history is all about taking the road not taken, even though some believe the road taken was the right one in some cases.

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